‘Fertility and fertility differential among Indian states’

The 2008 revision of the United nations ‘ Population estimates and Projection reveals that world population is projected to reach 7 billon early in 2012 up from the current 6.8bn and surplus 9 billon people by 2050 most of the additional 2.3, The population of developing countries is projected to rise from 5.6bn in 2009 to 7.9bn in 2050. India's population of approximately 1.17 billon people estimated for 2009 consists of more than one sixth of the world population. During the decade of 1991–2001 India's annual population growth rate has slowed down from 2.14 percent to 1.93 percent while 15 states and UTs have registered growth rates below 2 per thousand during the last decade, the remaining states have registered rates that are greater than the national average. In such a scenario, it becomes important to analyze the state-wise trends in fertility so that the relatively poorly performing states can improve by learning from the experience of the better performing ones. The taxonomic method has been used in this paper, for constructing the Composite Performance Index (i.e. fertility index in this case) which is based on women's education, wealth, women's employment, use of contraceptives, age at first marriage, son preference, women's health and women's empowerment. This index helps capture not only relevant performance of states, but also the relative importance of the aforementioned factors in causing the variation in this performance among states.